Excerpt:  “Flick.” He didn’t so much say it a mouth it, as he snapped the cigarette from his fingers. He did not wish to break the serene, crystalline silence of this typical winter midnight. The blanket of snow and the cold added soft pressure to the gathering hush, and he thought he could hear the butt sizzling as it spiraled into its powdery grave.

“I’ll bring you a friend a little later,” he thought, silently communicating to the discarded cig.

Up ahead there was a door with a blue light, and beyond the door, a visit he must make. No snow days with this work. When he gets the call he must answer or there will be no more calls, no more anything. Maybe not even the black of the night without the blue lights. Nobody knows. No matter what they say, nobody knows.

When he reached the vestibule, he stamped the snow off of his feat, and then he froze, realizing he’d broken the silence. The light went off above his head, inviting the darkness to surround him. He stood there waiting, listening to his breath, visible in the cold. He didn’t turn around.

–Danny Grosso

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